George Mason University’s H.N.N. Publishes Kirstein’s Iraq War Presentation at March 29, 2006 Debate With David Horowitz

History News Network has published an article I wrote entitled "Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal." However it is an abridged version of the one presented at a debate on the war with David Horowitz. The following is from the original not included in the H.N.N. piece. One might wish to consult the H.N.N. article first then the excerpts below to encounter my article on mass-murder perpetrated by war criminals who deserve life in prison, not comfort with entourages of sycophants and aeroplane fleets:

"We were told Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he must be disarmed. We were told he violated sixteen Security Council Resolutions such as #687 and #1441 that required Iraq to “unconditionally” report and destroy its W.M.D. In August 2002, seven months before the invasion, Vice President Dick Cheney said: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” Two days prior to the invasion, Mr. Bush again cited Iraq’s W.M.D. as proof of its failure to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions. "It had no W.M.D. and this fact alone suggests the war, which has destroyed Iraq, killed over 100,000 Iraqi citizens, caused the deaths of 2,350 American soldiers, the wounding of 18,000, destabilised the Middle East and severely damaged the reputation of the United States, is the greatest blunder since Vietnam and an act of state terrorism that must be resisted by the American people.

"Saddam did not possess chemical, biological or, unlike Israel, nuclear weapons. We were told that mushroom clouds from nuclear explosions might occur if Saddam were not deterred from his nuclear ambitions. Yet no credible intelligence concluded that Iraq was a nuclear weapons state and certainly not the U.N.M.O.V.I.C. inspectors under Dr. Hans Blix that the U.S. removed just prior to the invasion. Iraq had no weapons grade uranium or plutonium. It did not possess nuclear research reactors or produce electricity from nuclear fission. We were told fallaciously Saddam was negotiating with Niger to acquire uranium. We were told a lie that he had aluminum tubes that were part of a centrifuge complex to enrich U-235 to bomb grade quality.

"Even if he had non-conventional weapons, it would not justify war. Saddam was no imminent threat. He was contained. He did not shoot down a single American or British aircraft in a twelve-year vicious no-fly-zone-war-enforcement of northern and southern Iraq. His people were hungry and babies were dying by the hundreds of thousands due to the criminal sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the Gulf War. He was a rational actor and never would have used W.M.D. preemptively against American interests fearing the U.S. would obliterate his country. In the Downing Street Memo from Prime Minister Tony Blair’s July 2002 cabinet meeting, the chief of British intelligence, Richard Dearlove, concluded after visiting Washington eight months before the invasion, that the U.S. had decided on war and “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

"During the Cold War, America’s adversary, the mighty Soviet Union, possessed tens of thousands of strategic-nuclear weapons and we lived with that reality for decades. Iraq, however, was an impotent, decaying country, whose military never recovered from the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War. Yet shamelessly the US, through deliberate disinformation, portrayed this weak, developing nation as a growing and gathering threat to the vital interests of the US. "We were told Saddam had connections to Al Qaeda, that Saddam was part of the September 11 attacks and that an emissary met in Prague with Muhammad Attah, one of the aeroplane hijackers. No such meeting took place. Saddam had no operational connections with Al Qaeda and was not involved in the September 11 attacks. The administration cynically claimed faulty intelligence was responsible for these mistaken assumptions. Yet intelligence reports never alleged Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda or the September 11 attacks."